Joint Research Centre

Transcription

1 Joint Research Centre the European Commission's in-house science service Serving society Stimulating innovation Supporting legislation A modern JRC Life Cycle Assessments for a in a modern Commission Circular Economy Vladimír Šucha, Constantin Director-General CIUPAGEA Head of Sustainability Assessment Unit Institute for Environment and Sustainability Ispra, 10 July 2015 DG JRC, European Commission

2 The JRC inside the European Commission The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission's in-house science service. It provides the science evidence for policy decisions, with a view to ensuring that the EU achieves its goals for a productive and competitive economy as well as a fair, secure and sustainable future for its citizen. 2

3 Lyfe cycle thinking (LCT) Social life cycle assessment (slca) Lyfe cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) Life cycle assessment (LCA) Life cycle costing (LCC) Life Cycle Assessment Other methodologies accounting for all supply chain Core concept for sustainability assessment of goods, services, and organisations Life Cycle Analysis: Better Regulation Tool for EU Impact Assessments, drafted by JRC-IES RESOURCES Resource extraction, farming, processing Manufacturing, processing Design Transportat ion Retail, use EMISSIONS Disposal Recycling, reuse, energy recovery

4 JRC Contributions to the Circular Economy The concept of the Circular Economy is connected to the principles of life-cycle thinking and of LCA method JRC is contributing to several initiatives including: - Support to developing the market for primary and secondary Raw Materials, better management of the knowledge base - Support to the end-of-life requirements for Ecodesign and product supply chains policies - Support to the management of waste, seen as a resource for the economy - Support to promoting a non-toxic circular economy, based on standardised LCA methodology applied to product policy - Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) 4

5 Raw Materials Support to EU Knowledge Management on Raw Materials JRC Raw Materials Information System EU RMKB (Raw Materials Knowledge Base) Developing the Raw Materials Scoreboard, as part of EIP RM action plan Sustainability Support and Information Centre, partnership with EIT Raw Materials, a European network of business and academia Assessment of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) 5

6 Raw Materials EU Scoreboard Cluster Sub-cluster Policy questions 3.1 Resource efficiency How is the material productivity of the EU evolving? How is the resource efficiency of individual sectors evolving over time? 3. Resource efficiency and promoting recycling 3.2 Recycling and collection rates How much materials are being recycled in the EU? Is the EU a net importer or a net exporter of recyclable waste / secondary raw materials? Is Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment successfully collected and recycled? Indicators (20) What is the potential for increasing recycling? 3.3 Competitiveness of the EU secondary raw materials industries How economically healthy and competitive are EU recycling industries? How competitive are EU recycling industries with respect to innovation?

7 Assessment of Products Method development and tests in product policies Comprehensive REAPRo methodology developed since 2010 Introduces new criteria in assessing end-of-life of products: Reusability/recyclability/recoverability; durability Identifies weak points and increases opportunities Policy impacts Ecodesign Method partly integrated in 2013 in official EC method for Ecodesign Results have been used in policy processes since 2012: Ecodesign, standardisation 7

8 Need for policy innovation and new overarching methods to foster consistency between policies Substances-related or horizontal policies (e.g. REACH) Product-related or vertical policies (e.g. Ecodesign, EU Ecolabel) Waste-related policies (e.g. End-of-life of Vehicles) Improvements using the Environmental Footprint Ensure consistency in the use of data in different tools that support EU policies Ensuring non-toxicity Increase robustness of the underlying data used in the assessment of chemicals for the Environmental Footprint Create synergies between REACH and other policies by making broader use of the data that is collected for REACH 8

9 Support to the Waste Management objective of Circular Economy Adapt and apply Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) to various priority waste streams Support the implementation of Life Cycle Assessment as decision making tool (Waste Framework Directive + CE package) LCA-based method to assess sustainability performance of food waste supply chains & improvement options LCA-based methods to identify sustainable targets for waste streams prevention & recycling In EU, around 30% of food is lost along the whole supply chain ~ 200kg/year/capita 9

10 Implementation of resource efficiency & waste policies The JRC research focuses on analysing coherence among product policies and searching for potential synergies among product and waste policies. Collection of waste at the end-of-life Commercialization of better designed products Waste policies, including requirements on: Collection objectives Proper treatments Recovery targets Product policies, including requirements on: Energy efficiency Material efficiency Throught approaches Voluntary Mandatory Implementation of end-oflife processes to comply with legislation Identification of products criticalities for end-of-life processes Approach potentially valid also for other policies (e.g. raw materials, hazards), to increase synergies 10

11 International Scientific Conference during EXPO and Life cycle assessment represents a reference methodology that may help analyse FOOD supply chains in order to achieve sustainability objectives, including those related to better agriculture and more efficient food production and consumption. 11

12 Thank you for your attention! Serving society Stimulating innovation Supporting legislation